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Monthly Archives: May 2012

CSI: MIAMI and HARRY’S LAW were axed by their networks but the reasons they gave were more idiotic and more likely to make people ditch television and go for video streaming more.

The rumor mill had been swirling about the cancellations of both CSI:M and CSI:NY. CBS was looking to add new programming for the fall schedule and both series kind of wrapped up loose ends very loosely. As I stated in a previous post, CSI:M wrapped up with what I call the NUMB3RS closing-a finale that many didn’t see coming. Ditto with CSI:NY-only this time, Mac’s life hung in the balance while the rest of the team hunted down his killer. He survived, but the ending made it look like it, too, had wrapped up.

Late in April, the upfronts began and CBS decided not to renew CSI:M, but wouldn’t give the reason why. After all, the ratings weren’t horrible despite being against a juggernaut like SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL over at NBC. In fact, the storytelling got better despite the move to Sundays. I thought maybe it was expensive to produce, but they did very little filming in Miami – most of it was done in Southern California. Ditto for CSI:NY-most of the New York sequences were shot on a backlot at Universal. There sets were almost destroyed by a huge fire a few years ago.

So why did they stop the dramatic shades? Location.

In fact, since the show wasn’t based in New York, it had to go. What?

The reasoning is dumb. CBS was looking to make Friday nights this fall “New York Crime Night”, by adding another crime drama based in the New York Area along with CSI:NY and BLUE BLOODS. They already have “Crime Time Saturday” so why do this? They’re willing to risk losing 10 million pairs of eyeballs for something that may or may not work. Guess that’s the biz.

In the case of HARRY’S LAW, the show was the victim of demographics aka television ageism. The show pulled in an average of 8.9 million viewers, it was a well-written drama and a great cast led by Kathy Bates. The show did well in the ratings, so why does cancelling it a big head scratcher?

Answer: it wasn’t pulling in the 18-34 demographic in, the demo coveted by advertisers. Yet it’s the people outside of this demographic that has the money willing to spend. And anyone shouldn’t be surprised. Back in 1999, ANOTHER WORLD fell to this same reasoning – despite it being higher in the ratings than SUNSET BEACH, the network decided to go with the latter because it had a younger demographic – didn’t matter though for both shows were canceled within six months of each other.

I really don’t understand this: if overall ratings and viewer eyeballs are supposed to count for the lifeblood of the series, why did HARRY’S LAW get canceled. It wasn’t expensive to produce.

And the thing that’s irritating on both series, especially a long-running one like CSI:M , is that there is no finale. Surely they wrapped up a lot of loose ends, but as I have said about GIRLFRIENDS is that not having a finale leaves a hole in the series. Both shows really deserve to be brought back long enough to wrap things up properly. Like Fox is doing with FRINGE. They ordered an abbreviated season to wrap it up. Maybe if CBS and NBC did this with both of these series to give them a proper send-off, the sting wouldn’t be so bad.

Have a strange sounding name? Don’t leave your posts or comments with these guys.

Every morning, I would get up and watch Good Dsy Sacramento, and this morning just gave me the motivation to turn off my TV on this show.

It’s a fun show, I do admit and it’s fun to leave comments on their Facebook page. Also it’s good if you can get through the “Just Curious” line.

But this morning, the fun left.

This morning marks the end of an era.

After three years, I will no longer be watching this show.

What made me change my mind? My name.

Granted my name isn’t the easiest to pronounce, let alone spell, so, like the good soul that I am, I would tell you how to pronounce it or spell it if need be.

That didn’t happen with the operator at Good Day Sacramento when I was first caller for this morning’s “Just Curious”. The conversation:

OPERATOR: Good Day Sacramento

ME: Good Day

OPERATOR: Who is this?

ME: This is Bhimsen.

OPERATOR: Benson?

ME: No, Bhimsen. That’s not really my name. It’s B-H-I…

OPERATOR HANGS UP

I’m saying WTF? I got dropped in favor of someone named Tracy. TRACY!

After a year of trying the “Just Curious” line and never getting through, I finally get through and get dropped because of my name. I guess they prefer American-sounding names. What’s so hard about Bhimsen? To Anglicize it, it’s pronounced like Benson but with a “M”, otherwise the true pronunciation is Ba-HEEM-sen.

Not sharing my Facebook posts is one thing because there are so many that they can’t get to all of them; I understand that. What I don’t understand is that when I get through the “Just Curious” line, I get dropped in the middle of spelling my name. I have displayed a lot of patience of trying to get through to the “Just Curious” line, and yet they can’t give me the same courtesy when spelling out my name – they hung up in the middle of me spelling it.

And what hurts the most is that I really like the show.

Or used to.

So I will no longer be watching this show. Like when my favorite soaps bit the big one, I now have more free time to do what I want to do, what i need to do, because my three years of viewer loyalty means nothing to them.